Sarah Couch
Director of Office of Governmental Affairs
To:Board of Directors
Associated Students, Inc.
From:Sarah Couch
Director of Office of Governmental Affairs
Associated Students, Inc.
Re:November Report
From Scott Lay: "I know I've been harping on this. Polling firms undersampled 18-29 year old voters through the cycle, particularly after Prop. 30 became a rallying cry on campuses. In the last four presidentials, 18-29yos have ranged from 15% (1996) to 22% (2008). So, why were they only expected to be 12% of the California electorate in Monday's Field Poll projections? In the end, the exit poll found that 28% of California's electorate were 18-29 year olds. And, with their 63% yes vote on Prop 30, they single-handedly put Jerry Brown's tax measure over the top. This also led to a 1.9 million 20-point margin for Obama in California that ensured that he won the national popular vote."
From the CSU Chancellor's Office:With passage of Proposition 30, California State University will roll back tuition, rescinding the most recent $249 per semester tuition fee increase that took effect for the fall 2012 term. Annual tuition fees for full-time undergraduate students will now revert back to $5,472 – the same rate as in the 2011-2012 academic year. Students will either be credited, refunded or receive a reconfigured financial aid package to account for the revised tuition fee rates.
Polling Booth
OGA supported efforts at the Sac State Polling Booth on November 6th in an effort to create awareness about the booth, answer questions, and poll students about their experiences voting. Around 600 Sac State students voted in the Polling Booth either with an absentee ballot, a provisional ballot, or a regular ballot.
I’d like to personally recognize Stephanie Gish for her work in primarily bringing the polling booth to campus. She worked with the Residence Halls, who we were so thankful were willing to help us with this project, made all of the phone calls and personally met with the Registrar’s Office. If you want someone to point to the success of the polling booth, it would be Gish. I am also so proud of Gish, Meg Panlaqui and Katie Cardenas for working all day at the Polling Booth. Their dedication to student success clearly showed. Special thanks to Rosie Dauz, Caleb Fountain, Courtney Williams, Nielsen Gabriel, Darsey Varnedoe, Kristen Cecchettini, Tim Buntjer, Ryan Allain, and so many others who helped out!
We should have the results of the exit survey soon. We are currently tabulating all of the votes and will send out our impressions from the surveys once we have them.
Sarah Couch and Vance Jarrard talking to students in the quad in front of the American River Courtyard.
Photos Below Courtesy of ASI Graduate Director and KCRA:
KCRA came to our polling place yesterday. Their photo caption- This polling place on the Sacramento State campus was called the county's least visited voting location last election. Today it had a continuous line of students wanting to vote.
Denzel Wright is a Sacramento State student who voted for the first time Tuesday. He said he wanted to vote "for a better future for all of us."
Look at City Ambassadors!
Collaboration with the Campus
-Monica Cortez and I have met with Terri Carbaugh fairly regularly. Our schedule got a little disheveled with all of the activities in the past month, but we’re looking to set up our meetings again so we can continue our communication. We’ve kept each other aware over email with what each had going on for the elections.
-I’ve been working with Public Affairs to disperse information on their “Help Sam, Help California” Project: It clearly represents the everyday student and the issues that are affecting higher education in this budget crisis as well as why it’s important to simply value our work in higher education. You should go like it.
-The SAEPT is starting up again, so if you hear of any events surrounding student activism on campus, please forward them on to me so I can keep the team apprised.
-Constitution Day/Week Planning is on the horizon for the next year. We’re looking to get more groups involved in the events of the week so that it can be a little larger of an event. If you have any ideas for next year, let me know!
OGA Activities
In regard to general OGA activities, we’ve updated the information on our door and provided an easier way for me to keep track of everyone’s activities with the laminated poster for recorded ins/outs. We proudly decorated for Halloween with our Haunted House as usual, which frankly frightened even me as we went about our daily schedule. In comparison to the other offices on campus, we will need to step it up for next year!
BOT Proposed Fees
As our Board of Directors passed a resolution stating their opposition to the proposed fee increases for the BOT meeting in November, we’ve developed some promotional materials as such with the image attached that can help. An electronic version is posted on our OGA facebook page. We’ve also got a large number of paper copies that we are placing in offices all over campus and passing out in classrooms. Please take a handful to help in your efforts to create awareness about the proposed fees. SQE on campus is having a Press Conference on November 8th at noon in the Delta Suite in regard to the fees. I am speaking on behalf of CSSA as CSSA’s Chief of Staff. I would encourage all board members to attend to learn more. OGA sent out the resolution to the designated recipients after it was approved by the board, per our new responsibilities around resolutions. CSSA has a version of our flyer as well to help get out the word about the fee increases, which is a big compliment to our marketing department for their great, universal work.
Lobby Corps
Lobby Corps has been busy talking about issues this month. We’ve been meeting every other week on Tuesdays at 4pm. This past we talked about the BOT fees and had a productive brainstorming chat about how to get students involved in the process. We are combining forces with City Ambassadors for the Palooza. We are currently preparing for our Lobby Day on November 16th with the representatives that Vance has decided would be best for us to choose at the moment per the elections. We still have a solid membership each meeting with about 10 students attending.
City Ambassadors
City Ambassadors meets regularly on Thursdays at 4:30pm. Currently, we are in the process of creating the Political Palooza event to inform students about the results of the election and help them to understand how it affects them. We’ve been able to come up with several main goals for the semester which include providing a way for students to get involved with City Ambassadors on campus as well as off in the community. We want to tie our program to the campus more and informing students of what is happening off campus that may affect them. We helped with the orchestration and development of the exit survey and are excited to see the results! If you want to get involved with us, come to our meetings and speak up! We’re looking for more people to join us in this effort! ()
Voter Registration/Awareness
We’ve been super busy this past month working on voter registration and awareness. We tabled every Tuesday and Wednesday in the past month on either registering students to vote or providing them with more information about the ballot measures and candidates, in a non-partisan fashion. We worked with Student Affairs to develop a message to send out to the campus on the importance of registering to vote and how they can vote in the Residence Halls on campus in the polling booth for the first time. We had an online voter registration tool to help students register to vote online. We registered over 900 people to vote! For the CSU, over 31,000 students registered with the ASI’s all over the state. We also supported the non-partisan forum and attended the event, handed out information and spoke on behalf of ASI at the event.
Marketing
I’ve tried to keep our OGA facebook page as updated as possible with higher educational issues and make it reputable as a place students can go to get all the information they need for higher education. We’ve made new posters regarding voter registration to help out with our own visibility as well as a digital flyer that promotes the existence of the polling booth on campus in November. This is in response to a lack of awareness around the new polling booth, which we are super excited about. Our OGA Newsletter went out for October. If you want anything on the next one to promote a program or event, please send it to Stephanie Gish. For our Remember to Vote posters that were all over the campus and the parking structures, I’ve had an enormous response with phone calls and emails with questions.
Volunteers
I’ve continually met with as many students as I can in the past month to recruit students to be a part of our internal committees and provide a comprehensive overview of ASI. We are currently trying to ramp up interest in our committees after the election to keep up the advocacy and civic engagement spirit that the elections left on our students.
Opening of CSSA Representative Position
As Vance Jarrard will be graduating at the end of this semester, we are in the process of opening up the hiring process for the next CSSA Representative. The job description should be on the ASI website shortly. We’ll send out an official message to the board that they can forward onto interested students. I encourage any and all Sac State students to apply. Please look to the ASI website for an application.
OTHER
Out of the Office
November 25 – December 1stfor Higher Education Advocacy Trip to Washington, D.C. with CSSA
Contact Information: l 278-3924
Office Hours
Day / Time / PlaceMonday / 1:30 - 4:00pm / OGA
Tuesday / 10:00am - 4:00pm / OGA
Wednesday / 10:00am - 4:00pm / OGA
Thursday / 10:00am - 4:00pm / OGA
Friday / 12:30 - 4:00pm / OGA
Committee Membership
-Student Activism & Educational Protocol Team, operating with Student Affairs
-Lobby Corps
-City Ambassadors
Events
-Digital Gear Discovery Meeting, Continued
-Hornet Football from The WELL Zone
-Tabling for Voter Awareness, Voter Registration and Get Out The Vote Days
-Classroom Presentations on the BOT fees
Please check out the OGA Facebook page for even more up-to-date
Information on higher education issues and everything OGA related!
6000 J StreetSacramento, CA 95819-6011
(916) 278-3924 (916) 278-6278 Fax